Page:Thinkwellonit.pdf/44

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desire; cast forth from the face of God into the land of oblivion; none to comfort, none to pity them; wounded to the heart with the sense of lost happiness; and oppressed with the feeling of present misery. And all these sufferings everlasting, without the least hope of end, of intermission, or abatement. This is a short description, drawn, for the most part, from God's unerring word, of the miseries which eternal damnation imports; this is the bitter cup, of which all the sinners of the earth must drink, Ps. lxxiv.

3. Consider, that God in all his attributes is infinite: as in his power, wisdom, goodness &c: so in his avenging justice too. He is a God in hell as much as in heaven. So that by the greatness of his love, mercy and patience here, we may measure the greatness of his future wrath and vengeance against impenitent sinners. By his infinite goodness he has drawn them out of nothing; he has preserved and sustained them for a long time; he has even come down from his throne of glory, and suffered himself to be nailed to a disgraceful cross for their eternal salvation; he has frequently delivered them from the dangers to which they were daily exposed; patiently borne with their insolence and repeated treasons, still graciously inviting them to repentance. Ah! how justly does patience, so long abused, turn at length into fury! Mercy at last gives place to justice; and a thousand woes to those wretches that must for ever feel the dreadful weight of the avenging hand of the living God!

4. Consider, and in order to understand something better what hell is, set before your eyes a poor sick man lying on his bed, burning with a pestilential fever, attended with a universal pain over all his body, his head perfectly rent asunder,